In the coming days the Archive will release subsequent volumes on lessons
from the Soviet war in Afghanistan, U.S. policy and planning for "Low-Intensity
Conflict," CIA guidelines on the recruitment of inteligence "assets," and
the use of assassination in U.S. foreign policy.

As noted in Biowar:
The Nixon Administration's Decision to End U.S. Biological Warfare Programs,
public attention has become intensely focused upon the threat of attack
by biological agents, as the continuing reports of anthrax-contaminated
mail facilities and congressional offices appear in the news. The effort
to determine who sent the anthrax-laced letters, how they have managed
to become so widely dispersed, and to come to grips with the health threat
posed have revealed the uncertainties surrounding any such outbreak. These
uncertainties regarding the cause, pathology and vectors of an anthrax
outbreak are mirrored in the case of the most deadly anthrax epidemic known,
which occurred at a Soviet biological weapons facility located in Sverdlovsk
(now Ekaterinberg, Russia) in 1979, where at least 68 people died. This
incident was a focus of intense controversy and heated exchanges between
Washington and Moscow during the 1980s, which would only come to a conclusion
with the end of the Soviet Union and a more open Moscow leadership in the
1990s. Still, the heritage of the Soviet biological warfare effort, which
was unparalleled in scope and potential lethality, remains a problem today
and tomorrow. The documents provided here give a unique perspective on
the Sverdlovsk anthrax issue as it unfolded and the questions it provoked,
which remain relevant today.

The first reports emerged in October 1979 by way
of a Russian-language newspaper in Frankfurt, West Germany that was close
to the Soviet emigre community, which ran a brief report lacking any details
about a major germ accident leading to deaths estimated in the thousands
taking place in Russia.(1) New details emerged
in this same paper in early 1980, with reports of an explosion in April
1979 at a secret military installation near Sverdlovsk that released a
large amount of anthrax spores into the air, again with a thousand people
estimated dead from the disease. There were also reports that the area
had been placed under Soviet military control with extensive decontamination
efforts implemented. (For these early reports, see Documents
No. 1-3) The story gained world attention as major British and
West German news papers ran stories on the catastrophe. As these reports
emerged, U.S. intelligence began to look more carefully at satellite imagery
and signals intercepts from the spring of 1979 and found possibly corroborative
signs of a serious accident such as roadblocks and decontamination trucks
around Compound 19, a military installation in Sverdlovsk, as well as a
visit by Soviet Defense Minister Ustinov to the city. The anthrax explanation
also seemed plausible, given the past history of U.S. and Soviet efforts
to develop the deadly microbe into a biological weapon.

The reports of a possible anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk
linked to an incident at a suspected Soviet biological warfare facility
served to further deepen already worsening U.S.-Soviet relations, which
were heading back toward a new Cold War in the wake of the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan. In the 1980s during the Reagan administration, Sverdlovsk
would become one of the major points in the U.S. indictment of the USSR,
joining with accusations that Soviet allies were using a mycotoxin known
as "yellow rain" against troops in Southeast Asia, to build the case that
the Soviets were violating the ban on the use of biological weapons imposed
by the 1972 Biological Warfare Convention, which both the U.S. and the
USSR had signed (see Documents 20 and 21).

The Soviets replied angrily to these accusations,
claiming that the deaths in Sverdlovsk were the result of eating tainted
meat. A Tass article entitled "A Germ of Lying," which was published on
March 24,1980, was typical, in combining the Soviet argument that a natural
outbreak of anthrax, which was endemic to the area, with condemnation of
the U.S. accusations as part of a plan for "spurring up the arms race and]
intensifying tensions in the relations between states," calling into question
the validity of the 1972 biological arms convention, and waging psychological
warfare against the USSR.(2) U.S. intelligence
analysts quickly dismissed the Soviet explanation as not in accordance
with the evidence. The consensus in the U.S. government, as seen in CIA
and DIA reports (see Documents 4-11), quickly
came to focus on the more sinister explanation of an accident releasing
anthrax spores into the air, producing a number of deaths from inhalation
anthrax soon after the release, and later deaths from consumption of meat
from anthrax-contaminated cattle. The analysts felt this explanation better
fit the fact that the series of deaths continued for nearly two months,
thus requiring the two different vectors for transmission of the disease
to humans.

To help develop the case against the Soviets, the
CIA asked Harvard biologist Matthew Meselson, a long-time proponent of
a ban on biological weapons, to examine the evidence. After reviewing the
intelligence reports, Meselson was skeptical of the emerging consensus
that an accidental anthrax release was the cause of the deaths, pointing
to the absence of any evidence for intestinal anthrax, which he felt cast
doubt on the veracity of the intelligence sources, (mostly second-hand
reports from Soviet doctors), and thus upon their expertise in assessing
the origin and pathology of the Sverdlovsk deaths. Meselson's doubts were
increased by the account given by an American professor, fluent in Russian,
who was living in Sverdlovsk at the time on a fellowship, who reported
he had not seen anything extraordinary happen there in April 1979. (See
Document
No. 27 for a report on a meeting between Meselson and U.S. officials
to discuss his views on the Soviet explanation of the accident and his
doubts about the U.S. explanation.)

Other scientists also harbored doubts about the official
U.S. accusation, noting that an accidental release of anthrax spores could
have been in connection with a defensive biological warfare research program,
which was allowed under the 1972 convention. As Miller, et. al. note in
Germs, at the heart of the controversy could be seen the differing standards
of proof governing scientific and intelligence analyses. For Meselson,
the fact that the U.S. accusations regarding the "yellow rain" toxins were
eventually found to be unsubstantiated (in part through investigations
with which Meselson was associated) likely only bolstered his doubts about
the anthrax hypothesis coming from the same intelligence agencies. Other
key questions for which there were no clear answers also served to create
doubts: How much anthrax was involved, if there was a release: was it a
gram or less, or did it range into the kilograms? How many people actually
died: was it between 60 and 100, or closer to 1,000? What was the nature
of the release, accidental or deliberate, and through what mechanism?

Obtaining clear and definitive answers to these questions
was hindered by the continued Soviet adherence to the tainted meat story
and refusal to allow investigators to visit Sverdlovsk, which was off-limits
to foreigners as a restricted military area. (See Documents
Nos. 22-25 for examples of the type of information which continued
to trickle in to U.S intelligence during the early 1980s about the accident.)
Soviet scientists again presented this explanation along with examples
of the autopsy data at scientific meetings in Washington, D.C., Baltimore
and Cambridge in April 1988 arranged by Meselson, who gave his view that
the tainted-meat explanation was "completely plausible and consistent"
with current knowledge about anthrax. Also lending plausibility to the
Soviet version was the fact that veterinarians had reported animal deaths
from anthrax before doctors reported human fatalities at Sverdlovsk. Though
Meselson agreed there was need for a thorough investigation of the U.S.
accusations, Meselson testified before a Senate hearing in 1989 that the
evidence supported the Soviet explanation, not an explosion at a Soviet
biological weapons facility. U.S. intelligence for its part continued to
find the Soviet "fabrications" about the accident unconvincing. (See Document
No. 28)

The Reagan administration for kept up the steady
drumbeat of accusations, putting the Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak within
the larger picture of an alleged full-scale Soviet biological warfare effort,
which continued to be a major concern for the subsequent Bush White House.
(See Document Nos. 26 and 29)
In retrospect, these allegations understated the problem, as U.S. intelligence
and later the world found out from the Russian defector and former Deputy
Director of the Soviet biological warfare operation Biopreparat named Kanatjan
Alibekov, now known as Ken Alibek.(3) (See
Document
No. 32) New calls for a thorough investigation of the Sverdlovsk
anthrax outbreak began to appear in Russia under Mikhail Gorbachev's call
for glasnost. Articles such as "Military Secret: Reasons for the Tragedy
in Sverdlovsk Must be Investigated," by Natalya Zenova in Literaturnaya
Gazeta, and "The Secret of the 'Sarcophagus'," by Sergey Parfenov in Rodina,
both published in 1990, began the drumbeat of public pressure upon Moscow
to come clean about the accident.(4) (See
Documents Nos. 30 and 31)

The final breakthrough did not come until after the
Soviet Union had ceased to exist at the end of 1991, and Boris Yeltsin
came to power as the new head of the Russian government. Yeltsin had a
personal connection to the Sverdlovsk issue, as he had been Communist Party
chief in the region at the time of the anthrax outbreak, and he believed
the KGB and military had lied to him about the true explanation. At a summit
meeting with President George Bush in February 1992, Yeltsin told Bush
that he agreed with U.S. accusations regarding Soviet violation of the
1972 biological weapons convention, that the Sverdlovsk incident was the
result of an accident at a Soviet biological warfare installation, and
promised to clean up this problem. In a May 27th interview, Yeltsin
publicly revealed what he had told Bush in private:

"We are still deceiving you, Mr. Bush. We promised
to eliminate bacteriological weapons. But some of our experts did everything
possible to prevent me from learning the truth. It was not easy, but I
outfoxed them. I caught them red-handed. I found two test sites. They are
inoculating tracts of land with anthrax, allowing wild animals to go there
and observing them..."(5)

In a subsequent interivew, Yeltsin expanded on the
deception he says the Soviet military had played upon him and the world
concerning the Sverdlovsk outbreak:

Interviewer: You knew about the development of bacteriological
weapons in Sverdlovsk. But it was only recently that you first talked about
it publicly. Why did you keep quiet all this time?

Yeltsin: First, nobody asked me about it. And, second, when I
learned these developments were under way, I visited [the KGB chairman
Yuriy] Andropov. . . . When there was an anthrax outbreak, the official
conclusion stated it was carried by some dog, though later the KGB admitted
that our military development was the cause. Andropov phoned [Minister
of Defense Dimitriy] Ustinov and ordered these production facilities to
be completely scrapped. I believed that this had been done. It turned out
that the laboratories were simply moved to another oblast and development
of the weapons continued. And I told Bush, [British prime minister John]
Major, and [French president Francois] Mitterand this, that the program
was under way. . . . I signed a decree setting up a special committee and
banning the program. It was only after this that experts flew out specially
and stopped the work.(6)

Yeltsin took steps in the spring of 1992 to address
the long-standing Soviet denial of a biological weapons program and the
Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak. On April 4, 1992, Yeltsin issued a decree
promising pensions to the Sverdlovsk families which had suffered deaths
from the 1979 anthrax outbreak.(7) Then,
on April 11th, he issued a decree promising that Russia would adhere to
the 1972 biological weapons convention. Soon after, Meselson led a team
to Sverdlovsk in June 1992 (with a follow-up visit in August 1993) to investigate
the incident, after Moscow had finally acquiesced in the visit. Here, they
were allowed to see autopsy slides of a key area between the lungs of the
Sverdlovsk victims, which clearly showed the characteristic signs of damage
found in cases of inhalation anthrax. This joined with other new evidence:
the rediscovery of information from 1950s anthrax studies that indicated
inhalation anthrax could take weeks to become symptomatic, not just days,
and data on wind patterns and the clustering of anthrax victims around
Sverdlovsk, which supported the airborne vector explanation.The 1993 visit
allowed Meselson to fill in the final gaps, placing the identified victims
clearly within the plume of deadly anthrax spores that the data on wind
patterns at the time indicated. As Meselson's partner and spouse recounts:

"We have now circumscribed the time of common exposure
to anthrax. The number of red dots we can plot on our spot map places nearly
all of the victims within a narrow plume that stretches southeast from
Compound 19 to the neighborhood past the ceramics factory. . . . we have
clarified the relation of the timing of animal and human deaths and believe
the exposure for both was nearly simultaneous. All the data – from interviews,
documents, lists, autopsies, and wind reports – now fit, like pieces of
a puzzle. What we know proves a lethal plume of anthrax came from Compound
19."(8)

Meselson had finally came around to the view long
held by the intelligence community when he published his final findings
on the case in November 1994 in the journal Science.(9)
Meselson was prepared to conclude that the cause of death was airborne
anthrax spores released from a military installation, He also concluded
the size of the release was between a few milligrams and a gram, leaving
open the possibility it was the result of defensive biological warfare
research, a conclusion contested by U.S. intelligence analysts, who argued
the release must have involved pounds of anthrax, based on prior studies
into the dispersal of biological agents. As Dr. William C. Patrick, the
veteran of over 30 years as a biological weapons researcher at Fort Detrick,
Maryland and expert on anthrax dispersal noted later, he and other experts
"hooted" when Meselson presented his release estimates.(10)
The U.S. intelligence position was also supported by Ken Alibek, who said
Compound 19 was involved in the "industrial" production of anthrax. Regarding
the actual cause of the release, information later obtained from people
involved with the Soviet biological warfare effort revealed that the cause
of the anthrax release in Sverdlovsk was the failure by maintenance personnel
to replace a critical filter in a vent serving the anthrax production facility.

Though Yeltsin promised to "clean up" the toxic heritage of the Soviet
biological warfare program, a decade later his successor, Vladimir Putin,
and the United States are still coming to grips with the environmental
and security consequences of this effort. The Sverdlovsk survivors have
apparently never received the increased pensions promised by Yeltsin's
degree of April 1992, and the Russian defense establishment still denies
the Sverdlovsk story. In a 1998 newspaper interview, Lieutenant General
Valentin Yevstigneyev, deputy director of the Russian defense ministry’s
directorate for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, responded to
Sverdlovsk questions as follows:

Interviewer: Do you claim, as before, that in 1979 on
the Sverdlovsk-19 military base, no explosions of munitions with a "biological"
filling nor massive deaths occurred?

Yevstigneyev: People who don't know much about bacteriology might
be able to believe the newspaper stories (which, by the way, is indeed
happening now). The professionals simply laugh.

International experts found four different strains (of the virus culture—author's
note) of anthrax. Four different bacteria! Different, you understand? If
a bomb exploded, would there really be four strains? How can you explain
that people fell ill 50 kilometers away, but on the military base, where
this explosion supposedly occurred, no one fell ill? Next door to the base
is a tank division—two fatal cases…Believe me, if this was a single military
release, two or three days and everyone would be finished!

Meanwhile, no one writes that several carcasses of cows with anthrax
were brought into the brick factory to be burned in the furnace. But anthrax
does not burn in a fire! The spores could have been carried off to anywhere
through the chimney. The spores themselves live hundreds of years. As an
example, no one has been able to live on the English island of Gruinard
since the second world war. Biological weapons were tested there, including
anthrax…

I was not yet at Sverdlovsk-19 in 1979. But in 1985 I was appointed
the deputy director of the institute for scientific work. Of course, I
tried to analyze the situation. I did a computer analysis using image recognition
theory and mathematical modeling, and I tried three versions: the institute
was responsible, a natural epidemic, and a diversion with the aim of compromising
the institute. Strangely enough, the latter version got the highest score.

Interviewer: In the documentary film, "The Generals and Anthrax,"
a worker speaks on camera about the existence of a section for manufacturing
biological munitions. The Ministry of Defense regards this film as truthful.
Does this mean that there was an underground factory after all?

Yevstigneyev: There was a shop where we really did make 4 samples
of the American one-pound, two-pound and four-pound bombs. The worker,
literally on his knees, made these "toys". But there was no other way—we
had to learn how to evaluate the biological situation, if such weapons
would be used. We assembled munitions, went out to an island in the Aral
Sea, set up biological reconnaissance equipment, observed what kind of
cloud formed, and so on…Now we have magnificent calculations which everyone
is using, beginning with the Ministry of Defense itself and ending with
the Ministry for Emergency Management.

But this was done considerably before the epidemic. In 1979, in a refrigerator
of the laboratory of Sverdlovsk-19, only a few ampoules of anthrax bacteria
were stored for vaccine testing. All of the powers that be knew this, which
is incidentally why they pointed the finger at us.(11)

Following the accident at Sverdlovsk, Moscow had established a new
biological warfare R&D facility in the isolated city of Stepnogorsk
in Kazakhstan, to fill the potential production gap after the Soviets had
to stop producing anthrax at Sverdlovsk. Here, an even more-virulent strain
of anthrax, known as Alibekov anthrax, after Ken Alibek, who developed
it, was produced that was three times as lethal as that produced in Sverdlovsk.
The full extent of the Stepnogorsk operation – which had an estimated production
capacity of 300 tons of anthrax spore in 220 days - and the environmental
remediation challenge it presented did not become known to the U.S. until
after Kazakhstan became an independent republic following the breakup of
the Soviet Union and a U.S. team of scientists and officials were permitted
to visit the facility in 1995.(12) The effort
to clean up the Soviet biological warfare installations continues today,
as does the effort to determine if any of the sinister expertise or the
products of this hellish operation has made its way into the hands of hostile
powers or groups in the world.

Note: The following documents are in PDF format.You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.

This document summarizes new rumors regarding the reports of
a biological warfare accident in Sverdlovsk involving between 40 and 60
deaths in May 1979, based on information provided by a Soviet emigre. At
this point, the CIA is viewing a biological warfare accident as just one
possible explanation for the continued rumors, noting it would be surprising
if the Soviets were working with a biological agent without an effective
antidote or vaccine available. The report notes the possibility that anthrax
may be involved, and that there is a suspect biological warfare installation
in Sverdlovsk, but concludes there is insufficient evidence to attribute
the alleged deaths to "unlawful storage of a BW agent."

This cable also reports on information obtained from a Soviet
emigre about an accident in May 1979 at the Soviet biological warfare institute
in Sverdlovsk, resulting in 40 to 60 deaths. Other reports of a quarantine
imposed by the military in the city in mid-May tends to support these rumors,
but there is no evidence that the events were linked to BW storage activities.
As with the CIA report (Document 1), this cable says there is no conclusive
evidence that a Soviet BW accident caused these deaths.

This report summarizes the current thinking on the reported
accident in Sverdlovsk within the Defense Intelligence Agency. As with
the two previous documents, the emphasis is on the lack of hard information
to back up the rumors of deaths linked to an accident at the unnamed BW
institute in Sverdlovsk, and reiterates much of what is found in Documents
1 and 2.

This undated document (which postdates February 1980, based
on internal evidence) demonstrates the case that the U.S. intelligence
community is beginning to make that the reported deaths in Sverdlovsk are
probably linked to the release of anthrax from a Soviet BW facility in
the city. As this memorandum puts it, "Evidence that the accident involved
a BW agent, though circumstantial, is compelling." Among this evidence
is the fact that the Soviets used military forces almost exclusively to
deal with the outbreak, and that they concealed the exact nature of the
disease. The memorandum concludes that "The release of large quantities
of anthrax spores, a candidate BW agent, offers the most logical explanation
for the sequence of events that occurred in Sverdlovsk during April and
May 1979." Though heavily redacted, the memorandum summarizes what was
now known about the Soviet response to the outbreak – blaming the outbreak
on anthrax-contaminated meat - and the nature of the accident that release
the infectious agent, providing criticisms of the Soviet explanations.

This document notes that reent intelligence had strengthened
the allegations that it was an accident at a Soviet BW installation that
caused the civilian deaths in Sverdlovsk. The earlier reported emigre accounts
are now seen as consistent with the early rumors and other supporting information
about a BW accident, though the magnitude and exact causitive BW agent
remain subject to conjecture. The report notes that the Soviets were unable
to bring the situation under control until late May or early June, and
that both Defense Minister Ustinov and Health Minister Petrovskiy came
to Sverdlovsk, likely to oversee the decontamination effort.

This document is apparently an updated version of Document
No. 5, containing much of the same information, with new data regarding
the nature of the accident – including claims an explosion at the secret
Soviet BW laboratory led to the deaths - and the Soviet response, which
included barring civilian doctors from treating the victims.

This document summarizies DIA intelligence regarding the Soviet
biological weapons program. Included is a discussion of the probable biological
weapons accident in Sverdlovsk, which summarizes the accumulating evidence
from various sources that the incident involved the release of anthrax
from the Soviet BW laboratory, including new details on the Soviet medical
response, the casualties, many of which occurred among workers at a ceramics
factory adjoining the Soviet military installation in the city, and the
subsequent decontamination efforts. While no exact figure is used, this
document also estimates that, based on reported "infective doses" for people,
the anthrax release had to be significant. This would contradict any argument
the research was for peaceful, medical purposes. The report concludes that,
while production of biological weapons could not be confirmed, "the evidence
points strongly to an illegal store of biological agents and probably biological
weapons development or production," in Sverdlovsk.

This DIA report provides copies of two
Bild Zeitung articles from February 13 and March 20, 1980, along with translations,
reporting on the accident in Sverdlovsk and the possibility that a Soviet
biological weapons facility was involved. The report notes new information
found in these articles regarding the nature of the infectious agent involved,
which supported the conclusion that a biological agent, such as anthrax,
was the cause of the deaths.

This DIA report provides an updated summary of the strong circumstantial
evidence indicating that the USSR possessed an illegal store of biological
warfare agents and was involved in the likely development or production
of biological weapons. Among this evidence is the accumulating body of
information that an incident at a Soviet BW facility in Sverdlovsk caused
the anthrax outbreak and casualties in May 1979, which "flies in the face
of the provisions of the [1972] Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxic Weapons..."

This State Department telegram provides the U.S. response to
the Soviet explanation of the anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk. As the cable
makes clear, the U.S. is unconvinced and not satisfied by the Soviet story
that tainted meat caused the fatalities, and wants to arrange for confidential
discussions among U.S. and Soviet medical, public health and veterinary
specialists in the near future to clarify the situation. The U.S. also
rejects the Soviet accusation that Washington is using the Sverklovsk issue
to complicate and weaken disarmament efforts.

This cable discusses the likely motivations behind a possible
Soviet effort to have the World Health Organization investigate the Sverklovsk
anthax outbreak. The State Department speculates that Moscow may want to
arrange for an investigation which would be on its terms, in particular
ruling out any visits by foreign specialists to Sverdlovsk, and avoid any
conclusion suggesting the outbreak resulted from an explosion at a Soviet
BW storage facility.

Reports on information obtained from two dentists who had learned
from Sverdlovsk doctors, who were friends, about deaths in the city that
resulted from an accident with some unidentified biochemical weapon.

This cable reports on a meeting between ACDA Deputy Assistant
Director Neidle and British Embassy Officer Pakenham to discuss the U.S.
desire to begin bilateral discussions, which might be later extended to
other allies, about the Sverdlovsk incident, in light of the unsatisfactory
Soviet replies to the requests for more information.

In a follow-up to the meeting reported on in Document No. 13,
the British Embassy informs ACDA that London had agreed to the requested
bilateral discussions on Sverdlovsk.

Document
15Document compiled by U.S Air Force
from classified U.S. Air Force Records, "The Accidental Explosion at a
Secret Biological Weapons Plant at Sverdlovsk," Unclassified, n.d. (ca.
9/80) 3 pp.

Source: USAF FOIA

This document, pieced together by U.S. Air Force officials
from currently classified USAF documents, provides a good summary of the
known facts about the Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak as of Fall 1980. Greater
details are provided on the course of the anthrax outbreak, including symptoms,
casualties, and the range of death estimates, going from the official total
of 200 to unofficial estimates reacing as high as 2000. Details on the
decontamination procedures are also summarized, including destruction of
area wild life, pets and livestock, provision of antibioitics and vaccines,
and treatment of corpses and topsoil with chloramine.

This DIA report from an on-site observor in Sverdlovsk indicates
that the cover stories still circulating refer to a gas explosion killing
100 people occuring in or about April 1979, and that veneral disease and
the so-called "Siberian Anthrax" were reportedly prevalent in the city.
Of interest is a map with a key to major structures is included with the
map.

This cable provides further information on the anthrax outbreak
in Sverdlovsk. According to this document, the outbreak began in the southern
part of the city, the Chkaloskiy City district, and lasted until mid-summer
1979. According to rumors, the disease agent had originated in a military
installation in the Chkalovskit District, which was still being used. Death
had come quickly for those suffering from the symptoms, which included
heart falire, respiratory failure, or diarrhea. The quarantine, vaccination
and antibiotic treatment, and deconatamination efforts are also described,
in terms similar to earlier documents.

This excerpt, from a longer document reporting on the Leningrad
Civilian Health Care Organization, refers, as part of a discussion of how
the Soviet system reacted to serious health threats, to the serious outbreak
in Sverklovsk two years ago which was rumored to have been caused by an
accident in a bateriological warfare facility.

This document provides an updated summary of U.S. knowledge
about the Sverklovsk anthrax outbreak and efforts to obtain further information
from the Soviet government. Repeating some information from earlier summaries,
this memorandum also estimates it would have taken the release of tens
of kilograms of anthrax spores to explain the large number of deaths associated
with the Sverdlovsk incident. Using the same hedging language, the document
says that "compelling circumstantial evidence" indicates the Soviets had
maintained an active biological warfare program at Sverdlovsk since at
least 1972. It notes that the Biological and Chemical Warfare Working Group,
Weapon and Space Systems Intelligence Committee had reviewed all the available
evidence and had concluded there was a "high probability" that the Soviets
still had some anthrax for biological warfare purposes and it was "possible"
they still had an active biological warfare agent program at the Sverdlovsk
facility.

Document
20Memorandum, Legal Issues Associated with Formally Charging the Soviet
Union with Violation of the BWC (as well as the Geneva Protocol of 1925
and Related Rules of Customary International Law, Secret, ca. 1982, 15
pp.

Source: State Department FOIA

This document sets out the legal issues surrounding any possible
U.S. decision to accuse the USSR of violating the 1972 Convention prohibiting
biological warfare. As it makes clear, the U.S. assessment of the Sverdlovsk
incident and its possible roots in an illegal Soviet biological warfare
program, is closely linked to the U.S. suspicions that Russia was using
toxins in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. These suspicions would play an
increasingly important role as the Reagan administration took on a harder
line against the Soviet Union. The document examines in detail such issues
as what would constitute violations of the biological warfare convention,
in
terms of the Sverdlovsk and the Afghanistan/Southeast Asia cases, and the
procedural aspects of bringing formal charges before the relevant world
bodies.

Document
21CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate, Use of Toxins and Other
Lethan Chemicals in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, Volume I – Key Judgments.
Classification deleted, 2/2/82, 23 pp.

Source: CIA FOIA

This document presents the key findings of a CIA analysis of
"all available evidence on chemical warfare activities in Laos, Kampuchea,
Vietnam and Afghanistan" by the Soviet Union and its allies. It also includes
a briefer assessment of the Soviet chemical-biological warfare program.
The study concludes that the best hypothesis that fits all the evidence
is that the Soviet Union developed trichothecene toxins that were then
provided to the Law and Vietnamese forces and weaponized with Soviet aid
in Laos, Vietnam and Kampuchea, where thousands of deaths have occurred
since at least 1976. Regarding Afghanistan, the study concludes Soviet
forcs have used lethal and casualty-producing agents on Mujahedin resistance
forces and Afghan villages since the December 1979 invasion.

This document reports on another personal account of the incident
in Sverdlovsk, this time with respect to the explanation that a chemical
factory had exploded. This account suggests there was no wide-spread restrictions
placed on movement within the city following the incident, noting only
certain specific restricted areas.

This cable provides information on the Moscow Biochemical Department
of Moscow Medical University, and reported links between some of its faculty
and students with biological warfare activities in Sverdlovsk.

This heavily redacted cable forwards details of another personal
account of the accident in Sverdlovsk, which is characterized here as an
incident in a special factory that had necessitated closing off part of
the city.

This cable provides new information on a possible biological
research facility in Sverdlovsk and hearsay information on the 1979 "Siberian
ulcer" (anthrax) outbreak. The information provided is further personal
observations of the suspected biological warfare facility.

This publicly-release document, based on DIA intelligence estimates,
was part of the Reagan administration's campaign to underscore the threat
posed by the Soviet biological warfare programs, and how this program violated
the 1972 biological warfare convention as well as the 1925 Geneva Protocol
(which are reproduced in this report). The key findings of the study, which
are backed up by more detailed discussion, are that the Soviets had gone
far beyond what is permitted by these treaties because:

The size and scope of their efforts are not consistent with any reasonable
standard of what could be justified on the basis of prophylactic, protective
or peaceful purposes.

The Soviets continue to evaluate the military ulitity of biological and
toxin weapons

The Soviets are rapidly incorporating biotechnological developments into
their offensive BW program to improve agent utility on the tactical battlefield.

Included in this report is a section devoted to the
Sverdlovsk biological warfare facility and the events of 1979, which summarizes
the U.S. case that the anthrax outbreak was the result of an accident at
the facility. This report concludes that as much as 22 pounds (10 kilograms)
of dry anthrax spores had been released during the accident.

This cable reports on a meeting held between State Department,
ACDA, Defense and CIA officers and Harvard biocehmistry Professor Matthew
Meselson, at the latter's request, to receive a briefing on Meselson's
discussions with Soviet Ministry of Health officials about the 1979 Sverdlovsk
incident. Meselson was doubtful about the thoroughness of a 1980 U.S. study
on the incident, but also felt the Soviets had not provided a satisfactory
explanation, either. Still, he felt the Soviet story "seemed to hang
together" and he wanted follow-up efforts to see if it is in fact true.
To do this, Meselson was organizing a team of experts to return to Moscow
for further talks. The State Department comment on this meeting was that
Meselson had failed to pursue "tough questions" with the Soviets during
his visit.

This heavily-redacted document summarizes the evolving Soviet
explanation of the Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak – the tainted meat hypothesis
- and provides a critique of the Soviet "fabrication'" which, among other
things, sought to explain the high number of reported male casualties by
reference to the fact that the male head-of-household always got the largest
portion of meat, and that they were more susceptible because of ulcers
or gastritis resulting from alcohol consumption.

This heavily-redacted DIA report, prepared by the Armed Forces
Medical Intelligence Center, provides a fairly detailed assessment of the
Warsaw Pact's ability to wage biological warfare. Among the topics discussed
are the historical background to the pact's biological warfare programs;
Soviet and Pact research, development and acquisition procedures, and evidence
of Soviet development and use of biological agents and/or toxins in warfare,
including a summary of the evidence regarding the Sverdlovsk incident.

This cable reports on the August 22, 1990 article in the Russian
weekly paper, Literaturnaya Gazeta, that concludes that the April 1979
anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk was due to an accident at "Garrison 19,"
a secret Soviet military biological warfare facility. The article also
says that, based on local reports during the spring of 1990, the military
is continuing to try to coverup this incident, and the paper calls for
a legislative inquiry to get at the truth.

This CIA document also summarizes the article in the Russian
weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta that reports the 1979 anthrax epidemic at Sverdlovsk
was caused by an accident at a secret military biological weapons facility,
not by contaminated meat as claimed by the Soviets. The CIA report makes
the case that Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin's long association
with Sverdlovsk may force a new explanation of the outbreak, though the
recent Soviet efforts to clean the Sverdlovsk BW facility may prevent any
thorough investigation.

This unsigned document, found in State Department records and
according to them dating from September 1992, summarizes information the
author had been gathering for years from former Soviet citizens who had
been involved with the Soviet biological warfare program since the 1970s.
According to these accounts, the USSR in the early 1970s began to develop
new biological warfare agents using genetic engineering techniques to enhance
their weapons characteristics (such as by adding increased resistance to
antibiotics); that at around the same time Moscow initiated a program to
transfer biological weapons research to civilian institutions and to create
new institutions to pursue this research; and that these facilities were
organized under a special directorate called BIOPREPARAT, which had recently
come under the Ministry of Health.

Notes

1. This overview of the Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak,
subsequent U.S. efforts to determine the facts about the incident and the
continued Soviet efforts to cover it up, draws primarily upon the account
found in Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William Broad, Germs:
Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, Simon & Schuster,
2001, specifically pp. 76-78, 79-80, 93-94, 134-135, 143-144, 175, 178,
221. Two other valuable treatments of the incident are Jeanne Guillemin,
Anthrax:
The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak, University of California Press,
1999, which is an account by the spouse of Matthew Meleson, the Harvard
biologist, of the investigation he made into the outbreak, including the
1992 trip to Sverdlovsk, in which Guillemin took part, and which provided
the final conclusive evidence tha inhalation anthrax was the cause of many
of the deaths; and Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg, Plague Wars: A True
Story of Biological Warfare, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1999, Chapter
Nine: Incident at Sverdlovsk, which is critical of Meselson's role in providing
initial scholarly support for the Soviet explanation of the incident.

2. "Anthrax Propaganda Used to Poison World Situation,"
translation of "A Germ of Lying" by Leonid Kraskov, Tass, March 24, 1980,
in FBIS, USSR International Affairs – Disarmament/SALT/MBFR, 25 March 1980.

3. See Ken Alibek, with Stephen Handelman, Biohazard:
The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program
in the World – Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It, Random House,
1999; and Statement by Dr. Kenneth Alibek, Program Manager, Battelle Memorial
Institute before the Joint Economic Committee, United States Congress,
Wednesday, May 20, 1998, available at url: http://www.house.gov/jec/hearings/intell/alibek.htm.

4. "Urals Bacteriological Accident Suspected in
1979," translation of Natalya Zenova,"Military Secret: Reasons for the
Tragedy in Sverdlovsk Must be Investigated," Literaturnaya Gazeta,
August 22, 1990, in FBIS-SOV-90-172, 5 September 1990, pp. 87-90; and "Consequences
of Alleged 1979 Sverdlovsk Anthrax Outbreak Explored," translation of Sergey
Parfenov, "The Secret of the 'Sarcophagus'," Rodina, October 25,
1990, in JPRS-TEN-91-001, 4 January 1991, pp. 84-89.

7. “On Improvement of Pensions for Families of
Citizens Who Died as a Result of Becoming Sick with the Siberian Ulcer
in Sverdlovsk in 1979, Law of the Russian Federation N 2667-1, signed by
Boris Yeltsin, April 4, 1992 (to come into force May 1, 1992). On file
at INION Library for Social Sciences, Moscow, Profsoyuznaya Street.

10. Miller, et al., Germs, p. 144. While
Germs
does not come down on one side of the release question, Mangold and Golberg
in Plague Wars clearly come down on the side of the U.S. military
experts, citing a release of "several kilograms" of anthrax spores; see
p. 67.

11. From “Terrorist and Intelligence Operations:
Potential Impact on the U.S. Economy,” Statement by Dr. Kenneth Alibek,
Program Manager, Batelle Memorial Institute, before the Joint Economic
Committee, United State Congress, Wednesday, May 20, 1998.

12. See the description of the Stenogorsk facility
and the revelations during the American teams visit in Miller, et al.,
Germs,
pp. 165-176.